Only For The Sake Of The Hopeless

The Art Of The Critic In A Nutshell: To Coin Slogans Without Betraying Ideas. The Slogans Of An Inadequate Criticism Peddle Ideas To Fashion.

Less And Less Frequently Do We Encounter People With The Ability To Tell A Tale Properly. More And More Often There Is Embarrassment All Around When The Wish To Hear A Story Is Expressed. It Is As If Something That Seemed Inalienable To Us, The Securest Among Our Possessions, Were Taken From Us: The Ability To Exchange Our Experiences...experience Has Fallen In Value. And It Looks As If It Is Continuing To Fall Into Bottomlessness.

Not To Find One's Way Around A City Does Not Mean Much. But To Lose One's Way In A City, As One Loses One's Way In A Forest, Requires Some Schooling. Street Names Must Speak To The Urban Wanderer Like The Snapping Of Dry Twigs, And Little Streets In The Heart Of The City Must Reflect The Times Of Day, For Him, As Clearly As A Mountain Valley. This Art I Acquired Rather Late In Life; It Fulfilled A Dream, Of Which The First Traces Were Labyrinths On The Blotting Papers In My School Notebooks.

In Every Case The Storyteller Is A Man Who Has Counsel For His Readers.

The Greater The Decrease In The Social Significance Of An Art Form, The Sharper The Distinction Between Criticism And Enjoyment By The Public. The Conventional Is Uncritically Enjoyed, And The Truly New Is Criticized With Aversion.